Innocence, Shannon Malloy

it felt just like childhood
protruding pending puberty
hints of body odor in sweat
a training bra
the first hard-on
pre-ejaculate stains
cigarette smoke
blood stained panties
syphilis and gonorrhea.
feigning grown-up tears from
adolescent eyes
and hiding date rape
in ice cream and cotton candy

Shannon Malloy is a poet and writer living and working out of Aurora, Colorado. Her work revolves around the darker compulsions of humanity and explores the body and disfigurement. Shannon is one of few survivors of internal decapitation and she uses language to highlight the physicality of trauma. 

Molding Clay, Gabriel X. Hendrix

I have set out to build my own Rome

To use saliva into my living,

To hum another heart once the old is gone.

Learning the recipe

that started with salt and vinegar, 

with nothing left,

but fire from a candle,

the air from a balloon,

and a piece of Eden.

The challenge

is to create harmony

from inside,

it would sting

without warning

to begin by resting and growing

in the ocean’s womb.

Drinking the clouds

painful sanity

I have used my blood’s

own name;

my words are

freshly hand made.

I gather animals from

imagination.

To then be in this haze

that desperately wants a host,

a body within another

as a doll filled

with cotton,

The organs are placed on the table

and the feelings begin to be nothing

more than a mystery.

The colors of tone decides to hide

from the

outside curtains,

like the array of anger

in the dim of one’s eye.

It is hard to see where one can go,

the mountains are far,

The road begins to duplicate,

reaching out to stumble

to then hear pounding of drums

that awake crows

hidden in trees.

The lights would soon

fall and like the stars

dipped in fire.

Land would finally sprout

from one single seed.

Gabriel. X. Hendrix is a poet & writer, born in Miami FL and currently attending the University of Central Florida. Hendrix will earn his B.A. in English Creative Writing. Hendrix explores the layers of grief and the struggles of identity through his writing.

To Father, R. Joseph Rodriguez

            after the ICU

after the velorio

after the rosary

after the mass

after the burial

at the camposanto

you wave adiós

you rise as a traveler

onto the next world now

seeking more tranquility

 and refills for your coldest

     most favored brews

    and aged brandies

R. Joseph Rodríguez was born and raised in Houston, Texas. He is the author of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. His most recent book project is titled This Is Our Summons Now, a poetry collection. Joseph is coeditor of English Journal. He lives in Austin, Texas. Follow him @escribescribe.

0100110 001101 Number One, dirtgod raven mack

words uncoupled regarded as data reduction

flow redacted

[01010 1111 1100 1100100101 101010]

slowed down to miniscule bits

terra bits to megabytes

terabytes of earthspeak

earth broken into parcels

attempting to comprehend the whole better

            by subdividing into infinitesimal parts

                        too small to even see

[1111111 01 01100 110011]

delving deep into data pool

            with drill function

speaking a disconnected language

            lacking primordial muck

                        which cannot ever be turned off

                                    completely

                                                always a little ancient space mud

                                                            left in the source code

progress’s axe refining whole

                        redefining hole

            istics ignored as lacking metrics to prove

                                    what’s felt obvious

[01010 1111 111101 011 11011]

an entire era built upon poor science

epoch billions spent manufacturing

                        blossoms upon a faulty premise

                                    promises the fault lines will never shift

                                                in fact don’t exist

                                                and we end up with

                        not bubbles burst but quaked earth

            then we analyze the rubble, shaking

our heads and we rebuild

            with tweaked variations of the same broken code

                        thinking

                                    “that should fix it”

[1111111010 101010 01011 1111]

            here is me

casting spells unto algorithms

esoteric life scientist

            not discounting the spirituality of robots

hoping al-Khwarizmi hears my la ilaha illallahs

            universal magnetics and

                        manmade dystopias on mass

                                    venn diagram with

            me

                                    sitting in the middle

                                                praying against

reality

                        bowed down

                                    praying against

                                                reality  

Raven Mack is an American mongrel mystic poet-philosopher of the Greater Appalachian

Unorthodox tradition. Operating as a multi-media writer, poet, rapper, and artist born and

raised in Southside Virginia, he self-publishes extensively in zine, print, and digital formats to

create a labyrinth of concepts, themes, and characters that blend everyday “reality” with the

esoteric and absurd. He hosts Southern Gothic Futurist Haiku Slams across Virginia, treating art

as a means to healing broken patterns – inherited, environmental, and institutional.

Broadway & Junipero, Cain Andrade Salas

Sitting is always a reason for me to be impatient. 

On busy streets

After busy days

After trying to save a boy's life 

and waiting for a boy to finish loose ends.

Sitting is always requiring more than I want to give of my time

And it seems that the only way not to condemn my chair 

And the racket of cars passing by 

Is by writing about the tediousness of sitting here. 

I begin to sound redundant

And begin to be annoyed by the endless parade of fag hags

And gym rats with their little mutts 

And wearing their sandals, provoking fetish or my gag reflex. 

It was enough that I was able to sit, to wait

And  to text that bitch, let alone open up pages

And let loose my disgust

It's apparently some kind of miracle that will keep me from hurling my pen at the nearest homo 

Or

Just the next bitch that walks by with a queer at the end of it's leash!

If you ever find yourself sitting at the corner of Broadway & Junipero you'll understand

I have to ramble

I don't do coherent well

It's a mess of a street

and probably a sociologist's dream

I don't see the lines drawn very clearly at this nexus of Long Beach

Nothing makes sense

It's a damn fruit salad

Fucking Frijoles and Tortilas

And those damn black beans!

Don't fucking judge me,

It's a total mess on Broadway & Junipero. 

Caín Andrade Salas is a 39 year old Leo poet and writer from East Los Angeles:

“My parents immigrated in 1980 from Mexico. I was born months after our arrival in East Los Angeles. We moved all over South East Los Angeles growing up and times were turbulent among my family. I came out once as gay in 2001 and then again as Queer in 2017. It was also at that time that I decided that I wanted everyone to pronounce my name only in Spanish. I spend my time navigating life quite chaotically and helping as many people as I can through my profession. “